*** Official Sager NP9877 / Clevo P870TM-G Owner's Lounge! - Phoenix 4 ***

well first of we should never compare jay2cent with mr.fox. jay2cent with everything provided to him on silver platter and all he does is benchmark and put together desktop, anyone with experiencing a few times will be able to do what he does.

on the other hand we have mr.fox actually do real job to make things work, not just work moderately but work better. for the mods/surgery you call it, imo we do w/e we deem fit that work for our own scenario. basically know what you're buying into and issues that might come with it type of thing.

 

To be clear, I have nothing but the utmost respect for you and @Mr. Fox . My question is this: Are these LGA laptops amenable to straightforward component upgrades, or is some knowledge of hacking/modding needed to effect repairs/replacements. Repair time is just as valuable as equipment cost. Never mind the joy we can get from being able to make the equipment replacement on our own. But, if the selling point is being able to perform fine metal shopping/soldering/jumping, etc, that is equally important as knowing it may be best for some to run the equipment to failure and replace altogether.

I’m an infant enthusiast. I really enjoy understanding how things work, and what I can do better. I hope someday to be more than an infant enthusiast. How much more depends very much on my realized skill set. I break things more than I can fix. I can do a pretty good job following directions. But, if important upgrades require elaborate solutions to effect, I can’t help but wonder when such upgrades may not be worth the trouble. Using dremels on electronic equipment does not ring true with this engineer. Neither does complete disassembly just to access upside down heat sinks just to apply needed thermal compound.

 

@Papusan continue off from 2080 thread.. this is the heatsink problem in 870tm and they need to somehow expand this.

look at the bare die, top left arrow and how cpu placement is, and heatsink contact.

Spoiler

also look at the heatpipes of 870tm heatsink and the possible die with cores/iGP

Spoiler

two most outer pipes are for system agent and outer cores. but their contact was the worst which makes sense my core0/1 are hottest underload by sometimes 3-4c over core 3/4. going by heatsink, most inner pipe to fan is completely useless as it hover right above iGPU, so is half of 2nd most inner pipe.

effectively only 2 heatpipes making decent contact doing real cooling and i have no doubt heat flow much slower to most outer pipe and most inner pipe, rendering the added thin grill for 2nd fan pretty much useless. its almost like its there for extra capacity, once the primary 2 center pipes are full, heat are then directed towards that extra grill to cool off. of course there are still some direct contact to IHS but the % of it getting heat just so much smaller and slower than the central pipes.

 

without @Prema and unlocked bios these machines aren't really all that worth it tbh. theres so much restriction on stock it gives a lot of headache. and also a lot of newer hardware upgrades cant be done without making changes to bios too.

for hardware side of things, ive seen people getting good quality heatsink and some is worse off. mr.fox has made some tutorial and he makes it real easy to understand what hes doing and what needs to be done. if you plan to purchase 870tm with the upcoming 8 cores cpu, expect that heatsink maybe an issue, which I got in mine currently, not to a point that is unacceptable but could definitely be made a lot better.

i can see why some would get put off spending top dollars while having to do additional modding, its in the trend these days everything on laptop market is junk so we kinda have to put up with it, either that or go desktop.

 

Maybe the heatsink contact can be improved with thinner thermal pads on the VRMs? The deep imprint on the pads, and the lack of thermal paste spread on that side of the IHS, would indicate they are too thick.

 

that could be the case. with the current pads heatsink fit perfectly align with actual vent in the back, with it being thinner it might not do so well on that regards. theres also issue with that pads imprint are uneven so assuming mobo/vrm is flat, then that means heatsink or heatsink mount on the mobo is uneven.

i could try thinner pads to see if it solves the problem, or by removing it first completely than i'll know the answer right away. tho by looking at die layout, inner/outer most heatpipes still getting little to no contact, if we only had said vapor chamber IHS that would solve the problem.

 

A slight misalignment on the vent has nothing on heatsink fit cooling wise.

 

i just dont want any hot air blowing into it and circulate, however minuscule.
i could already guess that even with pads removed contact will probably not improve. if its slanted in 1 direction then remove pad may work. look at the screenshot, the center of the CPU making contact while top/bottom arent and thats messed up. a convex IHS? or a convex heatsink contact? both looks flat to me so don't really know.

 

Meaker is correct. Even if the fin stack looks a bit off, under the pressure of that fan - air will travel at it's path of least resistance out correctly. I pondered that same scenario as well. I smoked tested amongst many other things while desgining the fan shroud. Also for the wonky shaped heatsink and or IHS. You are probably right about both convex. Especially the IHS. Out of the dozens of 7700ks and 8700ks I have delidded and lapped. You would scream at the sight of some where there is aloottttt of copper around the outside and silver in the middle of the IHS. I can also say that the mounting pressure of that heatsink applies a bit more pressure than credit is given. If I still had the pics I'd show how mounting with a different set of screws would make the heatsink itself cup around the CPU.
The only for sure method of getting it any more flat is with a glass press and a very flat shim lol. The solder will fill any of the gaps to the heat pipe as well.

 

makes me wonder what would happen if we solder like a 2.5-3mm thick vapor chamber to bottom of heatsink, and then lapp the IHS a little. 3mm might be too thick though.

 

Or just some pads that need adjusting like previously said.

 

u mean removing the pads first to check contact?

 

Ideally you did refresh the whole set and go through pad by pad judging the best thickness. It can take an afternoon however.

 

It's a lot quicker to add a 20x20mm shim to the core... been there done that

 

yea that was original idea, then if i were to go through all those trouble buying materials to solder i might as well go big. waiting for parts right now.

courtesy of dayman on hardocp. 9900k or 9700k


a bigger die than 8700k after a delid, soldered.

 

That's considered soldered ? Lol

 

@ole!!! Why make it so difficult. Here is another P870TM Cpu heatsink pict. Exactly same problem (same place). Put in an 20x20mm shim will create a double quatro 4 layers with thermal paste (Liquid metal if this is what you use) and the results won't be so much better (You will still need to thinker with the pads due the shim). Aka... LM on die, LM on shim bottom, LM on shim top and finally LM on Heatsink cold plate (4 layers with paste). Same problem if you will go for a thinner Vapor chamber. This should only be done if you run into the Clevo Cpu bracket lottery. You find the topic in Clevo overclocker thread.

Just cut of some of the the length on the thermal pad who is used in there already. Then add in a snmall piece thinner pad as in the pict (See greeen).

 

no, if i use a shim, it'll be solder, it wont be more TIM as you said that makes it worse so solder is the only way to go. its similar to mr. fox's video here
.

I got the clamps, solder paste and heatgun all here, just waiting for copper vapor chamber. I also got an extra p870tm heatsink, one will be backup incase solder goes bad, the vapor chamber piece is 2.5mm thick though so might be too thick.

 

Of course this will help. I talked more about a floating shim. But a lot can be done if you fix the pad problem as I described/posted. You have to fix the pad thickness anyway. The orginale won't fit with use of shim. My fix will take under one hour.

 

Remember !!! Do not clamp to tight , and do NOT heat more than you have to lol.

 

i understand not to heat more than i have to but isnt tighter the better as long as heatsink is not damaged?

I have removed the pads and its not because the pads are too thick. the contact didnt really get any better and if I want to put an 8 cores in there with decent temp i'd have to do this regardless. a binned chip is no longer enough if i want 8 core at like 4.8/4.9 with low fan noise.

i plan to solder vapor chamber to bottom of the heatsink, thicker would mean higher pressure if pressure doesnt break the vapor portion of it, also help spread heat to most outer and most inner pipe much quicker making them much more relevant.

theres another reason for vapor chamber piece but i'll add that later, when more parts arrive.

 

Then you need to check if you have the Cpu bracket problem.

 

yea if i got bracket problem then even vapor chamber wouldnt help, at least not with the one i got, its 70x70 so its bigger than IHS and exceeds even bracket.

 

Given how the solder paste works, the pressure really doesn't matter until it cools off enough to set . A decent pressure is fine. But I could find no difference in my testing between damn near crushing the heatsink with clamps vs getting it tight enough to allow for the smush of solder when it reached it's melting temp. But gap between heatpipes vs the thin copper plate that they decided to use vs shim = you mileage may vary

 

Geez that 70x70mm square will need a fair bit of frame cutting to fit, up near the ram and around the power jack?

Do you know what the maximum watt rating on it is? Is it similar to the 70x70x3mm nickel plated copper VC that's on aliexpress

Be careful heating it. My DM3 GPU VC heatsink started swelling and popping some internal posts (in the one spot I didn't have a clamp) and I was only using low temp 138C solder which is ~20W/mK. I'm interested whether lapping + liquid metal might be better for thermal conductivity.

 

yea its similar to that one on aliexpress.

 

Lol you better be able to lap the absolute hell out of that heatsink if you are pondering going that route. It's a wonder the laptop doesn't slide out from under it when you try to bolt it down because it's so warped lol. At least with the shim giving that the shim is flat , and the process of putting in place with heat-clamp- and solder will help flatten it out a bit .
Shim size I use is 42MM X 42MM and they are 1.2MM thick. The .2mm was to help a bit with the thermal pads.
After searching for that VC that you guys were talking. That leads me to a striking new idea. Lol

 

Vapor chambers have always been pretty delicate, it makes manufacturing them tricky.

 

VC coming tonight.. gonna fire it up with 2 layers of ICD first and see the contact, and then solder comes after. so hyped!

 

Don’t forget post screenshots of the old thermal paste + pads. And before and after pictures of temp.

 

2 layers of ICD?

 

2 layers of ic diamond. between IHS and VC, then between VC to heatsink.

also does anyone know that lowering brightness/contrast & gamma in nvidia control panel helps prolong battery? imo it should because window lowering brightness does save battery.

another question, anyone know how to lock display at 30hz, this is also for battery OS as a backup. nvidia panel only has 60 and 120hz. how can i go lower to 30hz?

 

If the backlight is reduced battery consumption will drop, if its just the liquid crystal layer being tweaked it would be the same battery.

 

In the Nvidia control panel, create a custom resolution there you can set any value for the monitor refresh rate

 

how can u tell which one is which for p870tm's display. looks only 1 layer to me but i donno much bout it.

i did that but couldnt tell if it was working or not so i went and create a profile with only 10hz to see but it still runs any video i play at 30fps.. i dont see any skip in video when i watch. any other way to test to see if its working?

 

News is slowly trickling in about the next gen ray tracing gpus and also for the 9th gen intels. My intention is to buy the next clevo 17 inch model with the desktop cpu and best cooling. Please point me to the forum threads where I can keep an eye on information about. I am mostly set on clevos and doubt if I will go for some other model unless for a very good reason.

• Name of next gen clevo chassis / chassisses
• What to expect for heat / throttle issues. I read in other posts that even the p870 has some challenges with 8th gen cpu cooling so I am really hoping that clevo remodels the new chassis with an extra fan or better cooling options. I want to know the thread(s) where I can keep an eye out for developments and to figure out if I should buy or not. I can buy ONE good laptop but I will hope it to last me for atleast a couple of years as I don't have THAT deep pockets to upgrade every year.
• What should be my main concerns during buying esp related to performance and heat issues.

Thanks

 

they'll use same heatsink and chassis likely for new 8 cores and old 6 cores, cause company saves money like that. for cpu get a decent chip from either silicon lottery, or u can get them directly from HID evolution when u purchase your configuration. i'd contact @Donald@HIDevolution for details just in case, opt in for that extra unlocked bios.

expect to run around 4.4-4.5ghz with 8 cores with a 6 core cpu heatsink, unless clevo really decide to make a new heatsink for cpu which i honestly doubt it.

 

I don't know about what silicon lottery means or how HID would be able to provide a good chip. Won't they have to just sell what they have ?

Hmm. So then there is very slim chance that clevo itself would do something about it isn't it ?

More questions:

• I was hoping to go with LARRY@LPC-Digital. I am wondering if lpc is a direct prema partner or not? I thought they became one but please let me know if they aren't !
• Does LPC-Digital have international warranty too ? hope LARRY@LPC-Digital can respond. (I wonder if I quoted his name correctly. How do you quote / tag users on nbr again ? )
• I am also curious of what happens when something fails within warranty with lpc (ie a reseller) vs Hid. What are the differences in which they will handle that ?

Does HID do some other stuff besides thermal repaste for heat. Ie do they have their own version of heat sink mechanisms/heat pipe configuration etc ? Also does lpc and other resellers have those too or they won't ?


I was also a little worried after reading that piece about HID to go with them but lets see !

 

Seems like I did ! Larry@LPC-Digital got quoted fine !

 

hid evolution got great services. I do think LPC also a prema partner but dont quote me on that, not entirely sure.

hidevolution purchases good chips from silicon lottery and help puts into your machine when they assemble your particular configuration, not sure if other reseller do that, i think some do as well.

the slim chance that clevo might do something different, we know its z390 coming with 8 cores so its already going to be different than 6 core machine in terms of motherboard, but its likely only the chipset is different. however with 8 core z390 mobo, clevo likely will reduce real voltage allowed to system even more.

7700k had like 1.35v? with 6 core clevo lower that to ~1.3v which will throttle u if you do not use high enough value of ac/dc, with ac/dc at 1, 1.3v is as high as you can go. with 8 cores they might lower that to say 1.25v but if u dont care about those they dont matter to u.

get a good chip, pay a little more on cpu, u can have decent overclock with 8 cores @ ~4.4-4.5ghz constantly with quiet fan noise. (thats talking about using 6 core heatsink)

 

I didn't get you. If clevo is anyhow going to reduce the voltage then how does getting a good cpu help increase performance. Isn't the new 'good' chip still going to go into the same reduced voltage chassis and still suffer the same throttling ? Do explain a little more what you meant please.

 

Voltage isn't dictated by the chassis (Clevo) it's requested by the CPU and that depends on the individual piece of silicon as well as the process from which it's made

The refinements to the 14nm process first released in 2015 (5th gen icore) to now (9th gen, soon) is what has led to voltage requirements dropping, with the greatest drop of about 200mV across the board between 6th gen and 7th gen

Within each gen though, there are "good" chips which need less voltage. E.g. An 8700K which needs 1.4V to hit 5ghz, vs a 8086K which is the same die but better made, which may need only 1.25V which will use a fair bit less power from both the chip and the vrm and therefore will have less heat produced. Or you can use that heat/power headroom to hit maybe 5.2ghz or 5.3ghz at 1.4V

 

Thanks for the info and the additional helpful material. I was however asking about this particular line by Ole above : but its likely only the chipset is different. however with 8 core z390 mobo, clevo likely will reduce real voltage allowed to system even more.

1. If clevo decides to limit the voltage that is actually supplied then is there any workaround for it or are we stuck with the reduced voltage? Or is there something that people usually do through custom bioses (prema) or similar to have the voltage unlocked ?
2. If , however, we are stuck with clevo enforced reduced voltages is it perhaps a better idea to get a 6th or 7th gen cpu which requires lower voltage out of the box so we can have a better system ?

 

clevo inputs bios/firmware only allow a certain amount of voltage into CPU before it throttles the CPU frequency down. getting a good chip will help because good chip uses lower voltage at same or higher frequency of bad chip.

an example. think about this, if u have a bad cpu runs 4.5ghz at 1.35v, clevo machine will throttle u down to 4.2/4.3 ghz until u r below the specified voltage. if u try to run 4.5ghz with less than 1.35v voltage it might crash, because its a bad chip.

however if u have a good chip, u could run 4.5ghz at 1.2v and possibly higher without throttle.

 

@bennyg @kfxsti @Papusan

thing was gigantic, 70*70*3 but 70*70 is more so the elevated part.. damn manufacturer and their description. including the base plate (?) the lower elevated part its actually bigger than even standard 2.5" which is measured at 70mm. this vc is more like 74*74 excluding that pointing end u see in the picture.



wont fit at all unless I trim some plastic portion of 870tm's chassis. theres also no "lottery bracket" on my part, cpu die was taller by like 1mm, definitely convex but the shim on heatsink side isn't the case. that copper shim on heatsink side is flat, but is of lower elevated than the back structure piece by less than 1mm (the piece that holds all pipes, screws and stickers).

in this case giant vc wouldnt work, shim is around 3.8*3.8mm size so this would probably work. https://www.aliexpress.com/store/pr...-Video-card-Radiator/1196911_32720417150.html

 

Aluminium. No thanks

 

still better for spreading heat. unless can find a copper vc one around same size

 

Be forced (can't use liquid metal) is a bad idea. I don't like it.

 

its okay not the die, use IC diamond is good enough i think.

 

With a spacer kit to help make the chassis a bit thicker (finishing up the final touches on the spacer kit im making), I think I may have found a way to make copper VC that goes on a passive cooling heatsink work. I'm just waitng on some of the stuff to come in. Even going to try a few ultra slim CPU coolers lol.
I don't run LM on the top of my IHS so I plan on trying the aluminum VC.